The silence that hung in the room on those words was palpable. I want your help Johannes. How did he know him? The researcher's mind was racing. Did something happen with the investigation that he wasn't aware of? How had they beaten him to his hotel room?

The grey-eyed man watched him, his expression unreadable and then, after a long stare, turned about and sat himself down in an armchair. "Have a seat, please." He gestured to the loveseat that sat across him.

Johannes and Viola both turned their heads to watch the bisharp that stood, arms crossed and expression severe, before the front door. They turned back to focus on the stranger and made their way to their seats slowly. As Johannes sat, he said, an edge in his voice, "Who are you?"

Ignace leaned back in his chair and sighed. "A detective. My name is Ignace Coquin." His eyes flickered between the two, his expression still neutral, though Johannes swore he saw the corner of his mouth twitch for just an instant. "A private detective, I should say. I'm here to ask you some questions and then be on my way."

"I've already told the Lumiose Police everything I know," replied Johannes. He leaned forward and looked Ignace in the eyes. "Why don't you go ask them instead?"

"Because they would never tell me the whole story. Or any of the story really." He pressed the tips of his fingers together and spread them apart. "Did you tell them the whole story?"

"Yes. I don't have any reason to lie to law enforcement."

"Nor would Johannes ever want to," said a cold voice in Ignace's head. He shifted his gaze to Viola. "Neither he nor I are interested in withholding any information that would help the proper authorities. You, however, do not represent such a body. You are independent." The gardevoir's eyes flashed. "You are rogue."

Ignace rolled his eyes and stood up to pace the room. "Of course. Psychics and their all-knowing ways." He stopped pacing for a moment and pulled a small card from the inside of his jacket and flicked it expertly at Viola. Before either of the couple could blink, the card had sailed across the room and hit Viola's forehead. It hadn't even finished settling before Ignace picked it up off Viola's lap. "Or not. Either way, I need that information. A client is in rather desperate need of having this entire issue put to rest. These murders, as you can imagine, aren't good for anyone in Lumiose. Especially not you two." He strode away from the two again sighed. It was an outright lie - there was no client. But Ignace was nothing if not accustomed to lying. "Believe me."

"What's so special about us?" shot back Johannes. "We're tourists. We're not even involved."

"I hope you're not involved. But I won't know unless you tell me what happened." He turned around and looked back at the couple. "And if you want to know what's so special about you two - nothing other than you both being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lots of people saw you getting chased by that dusknoir." He dug his hands into his pockets and glanced around the room. "Dusknoir aren't exactly a common pokemon here in the city. Owned or otherwise."

"Whether or not they are common is hardly of consequence to us. What does bringing this point up serve?"

"It serves to remind you that ghosts don't go around doing shit for no reason." His composure cracked slightly and Ignace let out a long sigh before he continued. "Dusknoir are rumored to ferry the dead onto the afterlife. I don't think you happened upon a dusknoir in the middle of the road and it gave chase because you called it fat." He locked eyes with Johannes. "Or is this all one big misunderstanding and the police are sad that they even questioned you in the first place?"

The stare Ignace gave him was unsettling. The detective clearly knew far more than he was letting on - perhaps even the entire story. But he wanted the account direct from him, thought Johannes. He wanted to hear it from the witnesses themselves.

"If I give you this account, will you leave my wife and I alone?" said Johannes seriously.

Ignace sat on the arm of the chair and nodded. "I should."

"Should?"

"No promises. If this dusknoir has the wrong idea about you, well, nothing you can do about stopping a haunting like that. Not without something a bit better than a psychic-type." His eyes drifted to Viola for a moment. "Especially one that doesn't seem to have precognition. Bit strange I think. Any reason for it?"

"I have devoted my life to communication and understanding humans."

Ignace forced himself not to laugh. "I see."

Viola frowned and continued, "My skill lies deeply in my attunement to and understanding of human emotion and human language. I have been more than negligent of my combat abilities and, yes, my prescience." She hesitated, then continued, the tones in Johannes's head, though not Ignace's, laced with embarrassment. "I am not entirely without the ability, but it is enormously reduced. I can see no further than perhaps a second or so ahead." She fidgeted in her seat and wrung her hands. Her eyes darted about the room and she continued to turn around every few minutes to glimpse at Charles with worry. "I have done all I can to block these flashes of insight from my conscious. I find them, brief as they are, to spoil the magical wonder of life." She turned to Johannes and stared determinedly at him for a moment. "And love." At that, she began to fidget and shift in her seat again, and her eyes began their dance across the entire room and each face anew.

Johannes grasped Viola's hand and continued: "Viola's interests don't lie in fighting, Detective Coquin. I think that much is clear."

Strange folk, these pokephiles, he thought privately. The times he'd encountered them in the rouge usually left a less than savory impression of their moral character, but these two were a bit different. Deviance, that was undeniably there, but there wasn't the pulsing undercurrent of drugs, alcohol and depravity that usually accompanied it. Crazy Sinnoh indeed, it would seem. "I need the account either way. I told you, I shouldn't bother you again, but if it so happens that this ghost has a vendetta against you, then you're going to need some help, and I happen to be able to provide that."

Viola wriggled her hand away from Johannes's grip and stood, her mouth agape and body tense. "What do you mean 'a vendetta'?"

"Exactly what you think that means," he replied gravely. "The dusknoir could be interested in coming after you, or not, I don't know, I need that information. Gods know the police didn't provide much in the way of answers."

Viola had moved herself between Johannes and Ignace, her face wild with worry. "What purpose does a dusknoir have for assaulting Johannes?"

"I don't know, that's why I need - whoa, whoa!" Ignace began to rise into the air, a faint purple glow surrounding his body.

"I was taken by surprise once, I won't allow it again! Answer me!" shouted the cold voice in his head.

Sight unseen, Charles had strode up to the threshold of living room and had raised his arms, a swirling vortex of dark energy focusing into the blades upon his forearms and his face set into a snarl. Ignace caught his eyes and gave the bisharp a meaningful look, his head shaking slightly. Charles lowered his arms somewhat but nevertheless remained wary and poised to strike.

With a wince, Ignace rubbed his temples and looked down at the ground. Not more than a few inches. The glow around her hands was dim and her breathing was heavy. She was mad - and exerting herself.

"Put me down," he said calmly. "Now. You're wasting energy and you wouldn't last a second against Charles." The gardevoir turned to look over her shoulder and saw the bisharp eyeing her, a dangerous gleam in his eyes. She felt a hand at her hip and the anger in her began to wither away into deep worry.

Ignace touched back down again and the glow around him and Viola alike faded. "Thank you." He adjusted his jacket. "For seeing reason. To answer your question: again, I do not know. Give me your accounts and I will see if that answer changes."

Johannes patted Viola's side, still seated. "Sit down, please. We'll tell him what's going on and then this'll be over with."

"We don't know that Johannes. This could be just the beginning."

"Then I'd rather we know that at least someone is looking out for us." He paused and leaned out from behind Viola's slender frame. "Right? If this dusknoir is after us...you can help right?"

Ignace turned his gaze to the floor and traced the geometric shapes the patterns on the carpet created. He chewed on his tongue for a minute before saying at last, "I think I can. I'll explain further after you tell me what happened." At the look upon Viola's face he added, "It's...complicated. Trust me."

The patting on her hip was more insistent. With a sigh, she relented and sat back down. "For now."

"Excellent. Then, Johannes, if you would please?" Ignace dug a small black device from his pocket and clicked a red button. An equally red light sprang to life on the end of the recorder and he pointed it at the researcher.

Johannes sighed and launched into a similar explanation he'd given the police. However, the moment he mentioned that Viola had fallen unconscious Ignace cut across him.

"Why did you fall unconscious Viola?" Ignace asked her.

"Something dreadful hung in the air in that alley. It felt as if it was soaking into my body." A shiver ran down her slender frame. "Soaking into my very soul."

A curious growling filled the air, harsh and gravelly. Content that the gardevoir would not step out of line again, Charles had taken to leaning against nearby wall, his arms crossed and his face impassive. "Ghosts. Never good," he said shortly. The other three all turned to look at Charles. Confusion, amusement, and worry etched themselves upon the faces of Johannes, Ignace and Viola respectively.

"Excuse me?" replied Viola, turning her head to look over at the bisharp.

It was the first time he'd heard her speak aloud in quite some time, though Johannes knew that she never exactly forgot how to speak this strange tongue. He was sure that she spoke it whenever she went to her art classes, when she spoke to those pokemon friends of hers. He forced down a chuckle. He vaguely remembered her even lapsing into a short burst of it in frustration. Like the "voice" in his head, her voice was like strange music notes, not unlike a chime that rings and fades into the throes of pleasant insubstantiality right as it hits the ear.

Charles waved a hand dismissively. "Know your kind. Soft." He shifted his shoulders and rolled his neck. "Fall to ghosts. To blades."

With a frown on her face, Viola crossed her arms and turned to look at Charles. "If this is your means of trying to help the conversation along, you're doing a miserable job of it."

The strange, harsh laughter unique to Charles rang out in the room. "Continue story. Won't interrupt."

Viola turned from Charles with a huff and, her face twisted into a sharp frown, her eyes narrowed and brow furrowed. "As your bisharp noted, my kind - psychics, are rather sensitive to ghost energies. My line specifically are bothered more than others by negative emotional energy concentrations."

Johannes's eyes widened. "There was that much in that alley? How did you not notice it at first?" he interjected.

"The dusknoir had to be in some other location, I am not sure. The alley did not have anything particularly amiss in it except… Something faint." She shifted in her seat uncomfortably.

"Emotion is gleaned easily enough from those around me. It is easier if I am close - physically and emotionally - to the subject, but those I am unfamiliar with will still register, although less intensely. I sensed something else in the alley with us before the dusknoir appeared. It was faint. Despair, I think." Viola paused as a look of embarrassment spread across her face and she refused to look in anyone's eyes.. "I pushed it from my mind because I was...distracted."

Ignace cut in. "Johannes, is there anything that might have been radiating despair, as she called it?"

Johannes shrugged. "You tell me. There was a weird corpse involved, I remember that. Let me explain…" He detailed the strange speech the dusknoir gave him and noticed Ignace shifted in his seat uncomfortably at the mention of "dawnsouls" and "dusksouls." He stopped him again when he brought up the corpse the dusknoir pulled out of the dumpster.

"Chest was torn open, it was covered in strange burns and it was smoking - and the smoke was making strange shapes and spirals?" Ignace repeated - the researcher nodded. "Pretty observant of you. I'm surprised you remembered that in the middle of life-threatening panic."

Johannes shrugged. "Being a behavioral researcher means you have to try pick up on the small stuff. Honestly, I didn't remember that dawnsoul/dusksoul detail until just now...Guess it's because I've had to explain the events so many times over I've finally started unpacking it properly." He paused and gave Ignace a slightly embarrassed smile. "And I've had practice with picking up on small stuff." Like everything he'd ever had to learn about Viola ever, he thought.

"Sounds like ghost energy damage alright. Hrm." Ignace tapped his chin. His hypothesis about the dusknoir being involved, or at least one dusknoir being involved in what was going on was possibly confirmed. He couldn't discount the gengar that had just attacked them however. It was only a possibility. "Anyway, please, continue."

Johannes finished his retelling of the events, noting that he was struck in the leg with a shadow ball and suffered a wound similar to those the corpse bore. There was a short pause before he added, "Why did it want to kill me?"

Ignace sighed and drummed his fingers on the armchair rests. "Because it, if it's the same dusknoir, wanted to do the same to me." He looked away and sighed. "I can't tell you why...or at least my best guess at it, unless you agree to help. And I don't think you're interested in getting involved." Ignace sat back in his seat and contemplated the couple. Fuck it, he thought. "I need your help."

There was a long pause before a cold voice said, "No. I will not needlessly risk Johannes's life."

The detective ran a hand through his short-cut hair and sighed. "I - we," he said, gesturing between himself and Charles, "All of Lumiose really, could use your help. You could help pinpoint zones of concentrated ghost energy and other strong emotions. That's invaluable. We could have...a fair few things we need done out of our hair much faster if you helped."

Sight unseen, d'Artagnan and Ricard sat in an adjacent room, ready to respond to any signs of violence or worse - intrusions from one of their stalkers. At this, however, Ricard looked down at d'Artagnan incredulously. The xatu had been feeding a nonstop stream of the dialogue between Ignace and Johannes to Ricard - whenever Viola communicated telepathically, however, he could offer precious little. "What on earth is Ignace doing? He was to get information from them, not recruit them to help," he signed to his friend.

d'Artagnan flapped his wings in agitation. "I am afraid I have nothing to offer you, Merchant. The Mortician appears to have made a decision without us. I wonder if his Blade is as bewildered as we now stand."

Viola stood. "Absolutely. Not. This is not negotiable. I refuse to put Johannes into such danger again. Do you understand?" The cold tone in his head dripped with something. There on the edges, creeping into the words: venom.

"Viola, please, be reasonable," implored Johannes. She turned to look at him, a wild flame alive in her eyes. He recoiled slightly. He was not particularly keen on helping Ignace - but the gravity of the situation, the involvement of ghosts with legends and myths as sinister as dusknoir in his life made him uneasy. The feeling of being sucked down a drain had settled into his stomach and he feared trying to run would only bring him and Viola to ruin.

"Reasonable? A dusknoir chases us halfway across the city, knocks this one unconscious with its mere presence and nearly kills you, and you are asking for reason?" she asked Johannes in a terrifyingly neutral tone.

The researcher sighed and stood, his arms outstretched. "Viola, please, let's at least hear him out - if all he needs us for is to find these spots I'd imagine he'd be with us to help. Bisharp are dark-types, they'd be able to deal with a dusknoir-"

"ABSOLUTELY. NOT." Viola stamped a pointed leg as a peculiar purple glow began to flicker around her body. The seat cushions adorning the couches began to rise up and shake and Ignace noticed his own armchair was vibrating slightly.

She doesn't have the strength for it, he reasoned. "Viola, Johannes is right. Charles and I do the heavy lifting, but I can't really go out and just ask a different psychic type to go out and do this - believe me, if I could, I would have by now."

"Why us? There are countless of this one's line out in the city - any one of them could just as easily assist you." The glow about her body began to coalesce and darken.

Johannes put a hand onto Viola's shoulder but she shrugged it immediately away and stepped towards Ignace. Out of the corner of his eyes, the detective noticed his bisharp stand up from the wall, his face twisting into a grimace. He gave the smallest of head shakes before turning back to look at Viola. "I won't pretend there isn't any danger involved, but a detective doesn't simply go out and ask the public - especially tourists - for help on something unless he's desperate. You're already involved in the case, if you look at from my perspective. The dusknoir knows who you are, you know what its presence feels like, what to look for - you could help find corpses. Please consider it, I know how you feel about possibly losing your-"

"How I feel? How I feel? I will show you how I feel and then we shall see if you think it so easy to simply let your husband walk willingly to his death."

It was a sound he hadn't heard in quite some time. The strange and dissonant notes her voice produced when she was enraged. He felt his ears prickle - mixed in were the unmistakable and equally rare notes of sorrow and fear. But what Viola did next is what threw Johannes into immediate panic.

The gardevoir launched herself at Ignace and grabbed hold of his head. He saw her eyes flash a blinding red and then the room disappeared.

Something was rooting about his head. It felt like a person sprinting across the ether of his thoughts, leaving puddles of anger, despair, paranoia and fear with each step. They rippled, like puddles in the rain and began to overflow into each other. He felt himself flip upside in his own head as the unseen figure upended his mind and began to pull emotions themselves out of the darkness - and with it, memories. Vivid images of Ana began to blink into life and flow into each other - one moment she was crying, howling in the dark, the next she was screaming at Ignace and then then she was running. A half-formed image, Ana's naked back and a sunset casting her in shadow, appeared for an instant before it dissipated. A howl of rage exploded in his head.

The memories came faster and then he saw it - an alley, Ana laying in the center, sobbing, clutching her head. Ignace lifted his head off the ground, warm blood running down his face and his chest alive with the flames only stab wounds could leave. Bodies began to approach Ana as Jeannette stood before them, defiant to the end, a freshly evolved banette. He glanced about for his pistol and saw it lying useless several feet away near Charles. The pawniard lifted its head and let out a fierce growl. He heard a figure laugh and turn to stomp the pokemon's face into the ground when it began to glow a brilliant white. The scene evaporated and he heard another howl. This time, pained.

This time, sorrowful.

He caught a glimpse of the inside of a Ranger office - of Johannes and his defeated expression and then there was nothing but white.

He no longer felt Viola's strange hands upon his face and whatever she'd done to invade his thoughts and memories had passed. He doubled over and dug his face into his hands, fighting down a horrendous urge to sob that had suddenly gripped him. A strange combination of bitter and sorrowful tears burned in eyes. He wiped his eyes and looked up at the room. Viola lay on the ground, chest heaving and face thoroughly flushed. Johannes stood above her, his hands raised at Charles - and at Ricard and d'Artagnan.

"Skitty's out of the fuckin' bag," mumbled Ignace. He caught a sob in his throat and turned it into a growl. He slapped his face and then stood. "I'm sorry Viola, I think I understand a bit better what it is you have to lose." He took a breath and then added curtly, "And I think so do you."

Johannes helped her to her feet. "Perhaps." The cold voice in Ignace's head was meek - maybe even defeated. She threw Charles a furtive look - the bisharp was rubbing its gauntleted knuckles and glaring at her.

"I'm sorry," she said, bowing her head. It was a nearly unforgivable breach of privacy - and it was usually reserved for far more pleasant uses, specifically with Johannes. Images of the strange woman, her crazed eyes and desperate cries flashed in her head and sent a shiver down her spine. Ignace knew how she felt. He knew it intimately. She glanced at Johannes and down at the wound on his thigh, wrapped in gauze. Ignace knew the taste of failure and the cold oblivion of failing one's only purpose.

Charles growled and then turned to look at Ignace - his friend nodded. "Forgiven." He took a step towards her and added, "Do not. Do that. Again." He rolled his neck again and added, "Will be more than a shove next time."

She nodded and then beckoned Johannes to sit next to her and then turned her attention to Ricard and d'Artagnan. "And you two are?"

"I am d'Artagnan. The Conduit. Through my body flows the shadowed tapestry of the King's prophecy. We are wrinkles upon the cloth - we are the revolutionaries that seek to impede his rise." The air of smugness that radiated from this statement was palpable, and so Johannes found himself laughing - even Viola managed to crack a small smile - when Ignace said shortly,

"He's a shitty crystal ball."

d'Artagnan let out an indignant squawk before continuing, "And my friend here is the Merchant, Ricard." Ricard bowed to Johannes and Viola.

"Enchanté," he signed to them. d'Artagnan relayed it to them.

"Ricard is deaf and mute, so you'll have to work a fair bit through myself and d'Artagnan to hold a conversation, Johannes. Viola will have it a fair bit easier though," explained Ignace, both speaking and signing.

"Strange circumstances that we find ourselves meeting," said Viola to both Ricard and d'Artagnan.

Ricard shivered - her voice was like ice in his head, bearing none of the usual class and warmth that d'Artagnan's did. He hardly knew her, he reasoned, d'Artagnan was a similar case at first. He nodded at her and looked meaningfully at d'Artagnan, signing, "Indeed. We hardly expected help."

"Ricard is quite right. We did not expect the Mortician here to ask the two of your for your assistance. It was...unorthodox." The xatu stared at Ignace before clicking its beak. "Nevertheless, your help is appreciated - should you choose to offer it."

Charles growled, and all eyes in the room turned to him. "Need our help." He pointed at Viola, his entire gauntleted hand leveled in her direction. "Know your kind. Soft. Emotional. Can't cope with hatred, sorrow and rage from the dead." Viola's eyes widened. "Soaks into bone. Soaks into soul. Overwhelms you." He pointed at his chest, gesturing where the red heart piece that jutted from Viola's chest would be. "No matter what. Soaks in. Can't stop it." He raised his forearms towards her, showcasing the blades upon them. "Can't handle cold iron. Sharp steel. Clashing blades." He crossed his arms again. "Ghosts too. Fall to dark. Bleed smoke and fire - but bleed just the same."

"You think we need your help?" asked Viola - she was uneasy, but not at all enamored with helping them and endangering Johannes - yet it seemed they had all come to the understanding that she was compliant, and that Johannes was too.

"Don't think." Charles smirked. "Know." He approached her - he ignored the sharp warning Ignace gave him and stopped in front of Viola, who stared back at him, eyes defiant. "Soft. But helpful. Can help us all." He held out a hand.

"The Blade extends his hand. Curious. I would take it, Embrace. You and the Errant alike could do with our protection." The two turned to d'Artagnan and then locked eyes again.

Viola considered Charles's hand and then looked at d'Artagnan. "Embrace? Errant?"

"So do the curious writings upon this tapestry name you." The xatu flapped several times, fluffing his feathers and then clicked his beak.

"I- I can't. I will not put Johannes in danger," replied Viola. She looked at Charles and then hung her head. The bisharp stared back and then looked over his shoulder at Ignace.

Ignace stood and began to pace. The professionalism in his tone dissipated, replaced instead with his usual crass speech: "There's a fuckin' maniac on the loose. This murder is not an isolated case, as I'm sure the police have told you. Hell, there may be several maniacs with one boss. Maybe angry ghosts.

"Worse still is there's magic involved, ghost-energy or some shit. You've seen police are going to have to do something about these murders soon. It's only a matter of time before they hit a tourist hotspot. This King d'Artagnan mentioned is doing something terrible. We're trying to sort this shit now, while the panic is at a minimum and moving around getting shit done is still feasible."

"But what exactly is happening?" insisted Viola.

Ignace ignored the question, and instead made his way to the curtained window in the hotel room and drew them back. He turned about and leaned against the window. "That is exactly why I need your help. Nothing like an emotional dowsing rod that can talk, to help us find more corpses - maybe more dusknoir. More zones of concentrated negative energies.." He leaned his head against the window and tapped it against the glass. "And who better to help Ricard and I figure this shit out than a behavioral fucking researcher."

He stood up proper and looked them in the eyes. "We've argued enough already, and I have shit to do. If you want the information then you'll have to agree to help - there's no point in sharing information that sensitive and potentially dangerous with you if you're just going to cut and run.

"So are you gonna help, or are you boarding the next ship outta here? I'll be frank: you're probably in just as much danger trying to run from this thing as you are helping us. So you can take this head-on or you can let it chase your heels."

Johannes looked at Viola then down at Charles's outstretched hand, then back at his wife. "Viola?" The gardevoir doubled over and clutched her chest. Hot tears burned in her eyes. Johannes wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer to him. "Viola, it's alright…"

Danger was approaching from all sides. They were running headlong into it, running from it, waiting patiently for their ends - no matter what approach she considered, the paranoia clutching her soul was all-consuming. All roads led straight to a cliff's edge and beckoned her to jump, and to bring Johannes down with her. The knot in her chest twisted and writhed, tightening until she could hardly draw breath, until it felt as if her chest would collapse and the strange red wedge driven through her would shatter. The guardian was insistent - a burning, immediate, commanding pain that shouted protest throughout her entire body like a thousand white hot knives.

She clasped Charles's hand with both of hers and began to sob, defeated. The thorny knot in her chest tightened ever so slightly as she whispered, "We'll help."